Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; food which reduces pain or inflamation

Hi JakeTyler.....

I just use regular iodine. Nothing fancy. Just the cheap bottle from Walgreens.

Hey there Jake,

Where in Czech Republic? I worked for company that had location in Brno... also we have a poster here (Hana) that lives there. She checks in here every 3-4 months now at most.

Regarding your questions:
Sugar - I meant table sugar and substitutes and processed food they add sugar (juice, soda etc..). Americans eat way too much sugar and it shows in the waistlines.

I eat all kinds of fruit and natural sugar is fine.

More easily digested - Zark talks about "sticky rice", I had some success with basmati rice when I tried Low Starch... quinoa is another.

I may try quinoa again upcoming, I would like a bit more starch in my diet.. but so accustomed to No STarch now and I do well that I have not bothered. Been on this diet since March of 2002.

Best,

Tim

Hi Jake, thanks for your tips. I usually eat 5 eggs a day for the last 2.5 years but just this last 3 days I've cut them out as I have a suspicion they might be causing me a minor level of inflammation. I'm going to stop eating them for a week then re-introduce them to see. A couple of weeks ago we ran out of eggs and for whatever reason didn't get any more. So I found for the first time in 2 and a half years I had 3-4 days without them and I felt I had less inflammation. Not entirely sure, but going to check.

Yes I've recently added more fruits back in after a long time of not really eating any. I'm eating bananas as well although I eat them green and starchy (maximum amounts of resistant starch) rather than ripe and sugary.

I've just started adding walnuts back in to my diet. I used to eat them a lot but I'm careful with nuts as I'm still finding that Almonds in particular might cause me problems.

Peanut butter is definitely out.

High protein is quite important from what I've read for body composition. Protein can get converted to glycogen if the body is low on glycogen anyhow which can help folks on low starch diets but obviously need to eat more protein otherwise it will take it from your muscle tissue.

I use a natural whey protein with minimal additives. A lot of those bodybuilding supplements are full of all kinds of crap I find. I was using a clean egg white protein to start with, but all the studies seem to say whey protein is king. Egg white protein was expensive too.

I've just started using L-Glutamine this week as well since everything I read about it says its great for the gut.

I also use dark chocolate for a boost of carbs every day usually but some people have problems with it so you have to try it for yourself.

I still find it quite sad, that in Czech Republic (probably not only here) there is basically no decent rheumatologist, who would invest some time into finding ways of fighting AS other than just taking ton of medicaments (and increasing doses and hoping that side effects will be mild). Or do they do it on purpose ? If you ask them if diet may improve symptoms, they will tell you that nothing has been proven and that you just need to exercise. My first rheumy didn't give me ANY medicaments, I was in constant pain and she told me to exercise (even though it was literally impossible to exercise through the pain) and told me that today there are quality hip replacements (approach ala "just wait until your spine fuses and dont bother me"). When my mother asked her, if she can have the same or similar autoimunne disease (after some time we found she is HLA-27 positive as well and probably has this or similar disease as well) she told her that women CANNOT have autoimunne disease such as AS (reputable doctor, who doesn't known women can have this disease). I was quite hopeless after i left the surgery but luckily i found this AMAZING website an year ago and I can without a doubt say that it saved my life

hey Dotyisle:

Thanks for clarification and info. I study in Prague now (university). I'm trying to eliminate processed foods as well now. Sad thing is, that starch in some form is almost in everything now, even in things I wouldn't expect, so I will definitely buy iodine through some online e-shop.

I will read some zark's posts and articles if I find it then

hey dlee:

Hopefully eggs wont be the problem. They are basically only protein and fats, but you will see I tried eating bananas as well (ripe, sugary), but still for some reason they caused me more problems than eating any other starchy food.

I was also thinking about buying natural whey protein because of lesser amount of additives. Oh and definitely give me feedback about L-Glutamine (if you buy it). I was also thinking about staring supplementing it, but I'm not sure, if it would help and don't want to waste money.

I use chocolate as well to boost my carbs (and it's something really tasty :D) so why not have it

Hi
I was diagnosed with AS about 8 years ago. I was told the same thing that there was no cure and I would be on meds for the rest of my life. After trying various meds and combos which all gave me tons of side effects my last combo was embrel and indomethacin. Embrel helped soon as I took it but after one year on embrel it really started to kick in. Finally no pain and I could finally sleep better. My neck was still very stiff, my shoulder and lower back were also stiff. Indomethacin helped a lot with the stiffness but I thought I would have to deal with being stiff for the rest of my life.
One day I got sick of taking the weekly shot and decided to cut everything out.
Literally one week after all my symptoms came back and it was worst than before.
My flare ups were now chronic. Every second of the day I had constant pain. It got so bad to the point where I felt like I was lying or walking on pins and needles.
Long story short I started to do a lot of research because going back to meds to me was not an option.
That ended me on a no startch (except white rice), no gluten and no dairy diet.
Two weeks into my diet my symptoms got a lot better but I thought that the diet would take a long time to kick in.
I ended up reading about turmeric and along with that it said that you should talk to your doctor before just in case I don't take it well. I was desperate and decided to just try it.
After purchasing turmeric I came home boiled some water and without directions I just put a lot of turmeric, honey and ground black pepper.
Two hours later I was starting to get frustrated that I didn't see any results but soon as that thought came into my head every single one of my symptoms completely went away.
I felt like I was 21 again and my joints felt like someone inside was squeezing some oil because my range of motion started to come back with in clicking or pain.
My symptoms started to come back slowly the next morning and I thought no big deal Ill just make a tea with turmeric and be ok. This time to cool it down and drink it fast I used two cubes of ice and after drinking it three hours later I felt the same. I don't know what the ice cubes does to it but it killed the effect of turmeric.
I don't know the long term effects of turmeric but three weeks into turmeric I noticed a few things. My flare ups started to go away and the length of the flare ups also started to shorten from days of constant flare ups to 1 to 2 hour flare ups.
I been on the diet and turmeric for about three weeks and when I drink my tea I feel like I just took 10 embrel shots at once. I don't know if anyone else is trying turmeric but I'm a full believer for turmeric.
One weird side effect of turmeric was that my dreams started to become a lot more clear and very deep. Like I would have philosophical conversations with people in my dreams. Weird right? Anyways I'll keep you guys posted
Feel free to ask questions.
I don't know if I'm lucky to be korean with AS but there are lots of foods to eat on this diet for me at least. I have literarily no problems and eat very well. Korean foods at home usually consist of white rice and tons of side dishes and most of the side dishes are startch free, dairy free and gluten free. I do miss the occasional mcdonalds and in and out but overall I love my diet.

hey Bucks, great info !

I also read like 2 very positive comments about tumeric so I will probably try it as well to see how it works for me Then i will consider to buy boswella or l-glutamine. I think it is all about testing and seeing what works and not

The cheap bottle from Walgreens cost almost $12.00. Yikes!

Hi guys,
I'm interested in the comments around ginger as an anti inflam on a low/nsd. I try to eat a little ginger every day in my daily greens juice but how much is too much? I mean if I wanted a high dose of ginger to be used instead of an NSAID how much should I use and in what format? I typically use fresh ginger.

Cheers
Andy

Hi Bucks,

I would be interested to know what dosage of turmeric you are taking and what brand you are purchasing? I've read many articles about how good turmeric/curcumin is as a COX2 inhibitor, however I've tried turmeric many times and it never seems to work for me. I tried 4grams of turmeric/curcumin per dose and I tried a 6 gram dose the other day but it made no noticeable difference.

Bucks,
Interesting reply.
I'm Korean with AS as well.

I've been trying to work out this AS puzzle both through the existing scientific literature, and through my own intuition. As confused as I have been at times, I have recently had some hints at clarity with respect to diet and AS.

It's extremely interesting that there is a genetic predisposition to this condition, yet no one else in my family is afflicted. Neither of my parent, 2 sets of grandparents. No one in my family can recall any relation of theirs that have had AS.
Interestingly I'm the first generation of Koreans (growing up here in Canada), that have not ingested the typical Korean diet. I pretty much ate like a typical North American my whole life (breads, pastas, dairy, sugary pop, lots of processed foods etc).
My parents, and their parents consumed very little gluten, dairy, red meat, saturated fats etc... very little starch, ....with the exception of rice. Yet no AS.
Interestingly also consumed copious amounts of Kimchi(tonnes of natural probiotics)

So I decided to add rice back to my diet 5 days ago. I wanted to be more certain of the potential effects so I ate a boatload of it. (and extra Kimchi too).
So far, no increase in symptoms.
Actually, I've been doing more patient care this week (I'm a physiotherapist) than usual, which would normally increase my symptoms.

My gut tells me (pun intended here) 2 things here:
1. We need some "good starch" in our system, and not avoid all starch. Just the overly processed bad starch.
2. We would benefit from regular addition of probiotics (be it Kimchi or in a capsule)

I've been on NSD for nearly 4 months now, and perhaps I should have stayed with it longer before adding back rice, but for better or worse, my curiousity got the better of me.

Just finished cooking some rice and packed it in my lunch to take to work tomorrow.
Here's hoping I feel well!